Aesica Celebrates 10th Anniversary As Eight Fold Increase In Sales Accompanies Successful Transition Into An International Full Service CDMO

Aesica, the global contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), today celebrates the company’s 10th anniversary. Formed in 2004, the company has transitioned from an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturer to a full service CDMO, offering API development and manufacturing, formulation development and clinical trial supply through to finished dose manufacturing and packaging, supporting many of the top twenty pharmaceutical companies across the globe.

Sales at Aesica have increased from £25m in 2004 to close to £200m in 2013 and Aesica is now established as one of the UK’s fastest growing companies employing over 1,300 people – increasing 10 fold from just 130 in 2004. The company has six pharmaceutical development and manufacturing sites across Europe in Queenborough, Cramlington and Nottingham in the UK, Zwickau and Monheim in Germany and Pianezza in Italy with its UK Head Office in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Founded through the management buyout of a former BASF API facility in Northumberland in 2004, Aesica made a number of acquisitions including a UK chemical manufacturing facility from Merck & Co., a secondary manufacturing facility from Abbott in Kent and formulation development and clinical trial supply company, R5 Pharmaceuticals in Nottingham. In 2011 the company acquired three finished dose manufacturing and packaging facilities from UCB Pharma. The three sites located in Germany and Italy has enhanced Aesica’s bulk manufacture and packaging capabilities.

Robert Hardy, CEO, Aesica commented: “A significant factor that has contributed to the company’s success has been the substantial increase in our export growth and we now export to over 30 countries. An important driver for this was our capability to take full advantage of the trend within the pharmaceuticals industry to give more emphasis to mature medicines. We met this demand with our arthritis drug, flurbiprofen, with the API manufactured from our Cramlington site for the past 30 years and we are now established as a market leading supplier of flurbiprofen.”

He continued: “We are proud of what we have accomplished during our first ten years in the pharmaceutical contract manufacturing sector and we have achieved this success through a combination of strategic acquisitions, organic growth, continuous process improvement and investment.”

He added: “We plan to continue to expand our global footprint in key geographic markets and have firmly set the foundations to achieve our vision to be the number one supplier of APIs and finished dose products to the pharmaceuticals industry.”

About Aesica

• Aesica supplies contract development and contract manufacturing services for Finished Dose and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients to a host of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies and emerging biotechnology organisations.

• Aesica is one of the UK’s fastest growing companies and over the last five years has more than trebled its turnover.

• The company currently employs approximately 1,300 people.

• In addition to its headquarters in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, Aesica has development and manufacturing sites across Europe including Cramlington, Nottingham and Queenborough in the UK, as well as sites in Monheim and Zwickau in Germany and Pianezza in Italy.

• Aesica is a portfolio company of Silverfleet Capital, one of the leading European mid-market private equity firms, which invested in the business in October 2011.